greencactaur wrote:I have a few games that rank as my #1Chrono TriggerPersona 3Dragon Quest 8These 3 games are by far my favorite games of all time. Each one is perfect from the gameplay, to the atmosphere, to the story. I absolutely adore them!

You have a 3 way tie for number 1 lol? I like those games too. I liked the characters from Persona 4 but liked Persona 3 better overall. I'm surprised Final Fantasy wasn't on your list :p

As for my favorite, it will probably always be the Sims 3, I still play that all the time and always messing around with the files and editing stuff to change or improve it.

greencactaur wrote:I have a few games that rank as my #1Chrono TriggerPersona 3Dragon Quest 8These 3 games are by far my favorite games of all time. Each one is perfect from the gameplay, to the atmosphere, to the story. I absolutely adore them!

Never played Persona 3 (or any Persona), but the other two are quite excellent. I never finished DQ8, but mostly enjoyed my time with it, and Chrono Trigger is of course a classic that any RPG fan should at least try out.

Bush Leagues wrote:Never played Persona 3 (or any Persona), but the other two are quite excellent. I never finished DQ8, but mostly enjoyed my time with it, and Chrono Trigger is of course a classic that any RPG fan should at least try out.

Persona 3 and 4 are both pretty good, although they both lose me towards the end, but still I like both of them a lot. Do you know anything about them at all? I never finished DQ8 either, and only played Chrono Cross, never the original, but thought that was pretty good too for its time.

Valvatorez wrote:Persona 3 and 4 are both pretty good, although they both lose me towards the end, but still I like both of them a lot. Do you know anything about them at all? I never finished DQ8 either, and only played Chrono Cross, never the original, but thought that was pretty good too for its time.

I think the cover art to the games are done in an anime style. That's literally all I know off the top of my head. If you feel like sharing, please do.

Chrono Cross and Trigger both have grabbed me with the fact that they both have relatively unique mechanics. That's to not even mention that story in either; I can't fully speak for Cross' story, but Trigger's is extremely good and stands the test of time.

The auto-heal after battle thing in Cross is really innovative and spectacular. I would rather see more RPGs with this kind of element in their games. It's no longer a long, grinding process to just fight random battles because you have to stop and manage your HP and MP after each fight; you just auto-healing using the spell levels you built up in the fight and don't worry about it. The fact that random battles also typically gave minimal benefit (possibly some HP and a stat increase once in a blue moon) and the only way to "level up" was through a proper boss fight means there's no real incentive to grind, and instead, an incentive to press on and discover what the story or side-quest holds for you. This is another great game I haven't finished.

Chrono Trigger is definitely one of my favorite games of all time. The newest version for the DS includes the cinematic cutscenes included in the Playstation version, and also includes a few additional side-quests not offered in the base game. It also includes an optional extra-tough boss fight, which ties together to two games (Trigger and Cross) a little more clearly, along with an alternate ending that is extremely interesting; but I've always been a sucker for multiple endings. Chrono Trigger's "technique" system is one of the most interesting things I've come across in an RPG. While some early techniques for characters get out-classed later on, the dual and triple tech system is really interesting and innovative. Essentially, it lets you combine two or three separate characters' individual techniques into a more powerful technique.

For example, Crono gets "Cyclone" early on, a move that lets him spin around and deal damage to enemies within a certain area (note that positioning and enemies moving about is a thing in the combat system too; something else not utilized in dozens of RPGs following this one). Lucca can learn 'Fire" magic early on as well. By combining the two, Chrono's decent Cyclone now becomes a rather powerful "Fire Spin" to do serious damage to enemies. Marle can get a healing spell early on; combine with Frog's healing spell as well for a more powerful version. Combine Crono's spin with Marle's healing spell for a healing spell for all allies. While the combinations are pre-set (and learned automatically if the characters are in the party together), there's enough variety and interesting combinations to make you want to find them all.

...I like and approve of the games, in other words. If that wasn't clear yet.

Bush Leagues wrote:I think the cover art to the games are done in an anime style. That's literally all I know off the top of my head. If you feel like sharing, please do.

I didn't want to go through and explain it if you already knew about so that's why I asked first. I'll try not to give too much away in case you do end up trying either and it won't ruin it for you. But basically in both you play as a transfer student in high school in his first year at the new school. In the day time you go to class which usually is skipped automatically unless there's an event and after school you can make friendships (or even romances)with certain characters called Social Links. In both games you get caught up in a mystery and have to solve it with the rest of your team. In battle you can collect and then summon demons called Personas that are based on all kinds of different mythologies and power them up or even fuse them together. The Social Links with your friends actually end up powering up the Personas you have and lead to unlocking even stronger ones. That's actually a really bad explanation lol, but that's the very basics of it. Its the characters and the battle system though that really make the game interesting since there's a lot of personality and charm in learning about everyone and their backstories and sidequests and things like that. Sometimes you will fight enemies that have specific strengths and weaknesses and you have to keep shifting out your Personas since some will be weak to say Fire and others will be immune to it, and some can even absorb it, so that will make battles easier. You can also combine them and have some of their skills get transferred over to the new Persona so that it gets new skills that it wouldn't be able to learn on its own, so you can end up building up a team of them so you are ready for anything and customize their abilities how you want. The personas don't actually stay out in battle after you summon them, so you still have to gear up your characters, it's the Persona's stats that also influence your character's stats as well. The game certainly not for everyone, since the anime style or high school thing may be a turn off, but I think they are both pretty good, despite my bad explanation There's also other games like Devil Summoner and Devil Survivor that has a lot of the same Personas or demons, but have much different settings and darker stories if the school thing is a turn off, those games are also pretty good I think.

Bush Leagues wrote:Chrono Cross and Trigger both have grabbed me with the fact that they both have relatively unique mechanics. That's to not even mention that story in either; I can't fully speak for Cross' story, but Trigger's is extremely good and stands the test of time.

The auto-heal after battle thing in Cross is really innovative and spectacular. I would rather see more RPGs with this kind of element in their games. It's no longer a long, grinding process to just fight random battles because you have to stop and manage your HP and MP after each fight; you just auto-healing using the spell levels you built up in the fight and don't worry about it. The fact that random battles also typically gave minimal benefit (possibly some HP and a stat increase once in a blue moon) and the only way to "level up" was through a proper boss fight means there's no real incentive to grind, and instead, an incentive to press on and discover what the story or side-quest holds for you. This is another great game I haven't finished.

Chrono Trigger is definitely one of my favorite games of all time. The newest version for the DS includes the cinematic cutscenes included in the Playstation version, and also includes a few additional side-quests not offered in the base game. It also includes an optional extra-tough boss fight, which ties together to two games (Trigger and Cross) a little more clearly, along with an alternate ending that is extremely interesting; but I've always been a sucker for multiple endings. Chrono Trigger's "technique" system is one of the most interesting things I've come across in an RPG. While some early techniques for characters get out-classed later on, the dual and triple tech system is really interesting and innovative. Essentially, it lets you combine two or three separate characters' individual techniques into a more powerful technique.

For example, Crono gets "Cyclone" early on, a move that lets him spin around and deal damage to enemies within a certain area (note that positioning and enemies moving about is a thing in the combat system too; something else not utilized in dozens of RPGs following this one). Lucca can learn 'Fire" magic early on as well. By combining the two, Chrono's decent Cyclone now becomes a rather powerful "Fire Spin" to do serious damage to enemies. Marle can get a healing spell early on; combine with Frog's healing spell as well for a more powerful version. Combine Crono's spin with Marle's healing spell for a healing spell for all allies. While the combinations are pre-set (and learned automatically if the characters are in the party together), there's enough variety and interesting combinations to make you want to find them all.

...I like and approve of the games, in other words. If that wasn't clear yet.

The auto-heal thing is kinda nice in some games, since you don't have to keep opening menus or even worse running all the way back into town. I was actually gonna ask which version to try, so I'm glad you mentioned that and I guess I will play the DS version then. It sounds pretty interesting by your description, certainly better than my Persona one lol, I think I also remember Cross has so many characters you could recruit into your team, does Trigger have that many or only a smaller team? Since I seem to remember quite a lot of team members, not really as much as something like Suikoden, but a larger team than usual. The techniques seem pretty interesting actually and seems like it would be fun to figure out the different combos and things like that, so I think I will definitely check that out, it's been on my list of games to play for a very long time, and yeah it was pretty clear haha

On Persona: That actually sounds kind of interesting. I've never given them more than a passing glance, but if I can find it on the cheap (I imagine so after all this time), I could be convinced to pick it up. Mysteries have been more interesting to me lately (helped by watching the classic Colombo TV show), and a slice of life game (where you deal with everyday problems and issues) has also had more appeal to me recently. I think it's sort of a lashing out to all the stuff where you have to save the world ("Ugh. Again?!?! ), so a more self-contained story like that is definitely appealing. Although it sounds like the stakes get a bit high in these, but that's fine, really.

On Chrono Trigger: Note the DS version is just Chrono Trigger; Chrono Cross has never been remade from what I know.

As for party members, Trigger has a very specific team. There are 6 mandatory and 1 optional character you get through the game. I feel like each character's personality is defined enough that they feel real. There are a few character specific side-quests as well, which are interesting and fun. There's one in particular for one character that you can "fail", and it has a real effect on you (or did on me, anyway).

If you didn't know (I didn't say it explicitly), time travel is a big part of this game. Your "home" time frame is 1999, but you travel to various other time periods in the world's history; in fact, these instances are what kicks off the main plot of the game. You have a fair amount of freedom toward the mid-part (and definitely later parts) in terms of when you want to travel to various times, and at least a couple side quests utilize this feature and require you to travel to different times to complete them.

So about a year ago on ps3, I bought both 3 and 4 on psn for $10 each which isn't bad. I remember when they just came out it was quite difficult to find an actual copy of it where I live as well, but now they should be more common. You could also try an emulator on your pc, but I don't know how some people feel about those or you can talk about that here, but it is an option some people use as well. OR you could wait a couple more months and get Persona 5 that's coming out and try that, since you can play any of them since they aren't really connected with one another and only a few characters appear in both games. Like Final Fantasy in that regard. The way you described that though fits in the Persona theme.

Ah I see, so it is a smaller team. That's fine though, since sometimes when you have so many to choose from, there's no real difference between them except appearances and you don't really connect with any of them since you don't know anything about them lol. The time travel stuff is interesting to me as long as it doesn't get super confusing like some things (Looks over at the Lost TV series). So I'm definitely gonna check this out soon and should enjoy it and will probably be writing here saying how right you were and its one of my favorites too

greencactaur wrote:I have a few games that rank as my #1Chrono TriggerPersona 3Dragon Quest 8These 3 games are by far my favorite games of all time. Each one is perfect from the gameplay, to the atmosphere, to the story. I absolutely adore them!

You have a 3 way tie for number 1 lol? I like those games too. I liked the characters from Persona 4 but liked Persona 3 better overall. I'm surprised Final Fantasy wasn't on your list :p

As for my favorite, it will probably always be the Sims 3, I still play that all the time and always messing around with the files and editing stuff to change or improve it.

Hehe I adore final Fantasy but those games just mean so much more to me. Choosing between them is like choosing between my 3 children

Sengoku Rance hands down. No game has provided me with as much entertainment as Sengoku Rance. The game provides both an exceptional turn-based RPG and a likeable cast of characters. It balances linearity and non-linearity perfectly, also providing multiple new routes and higher difficulty levels for new game+ playthroughs. No game has gripped me in quite the same way as Sengoku Rance. It retains the one more turn feeling of something like Civilization while also having a fantastic story and cast of characters which motivated me to start playing to begin with.

It's an H game but I really couldn't care less about the porno. I just legitimately enjoy it as a video game. I can't say the same about most other Rance games or H games; there are only two other games which comes as close to greatness. The first of these is Kichikuou Rance, which clearly was the motivator behind Sengoku's gameplay. Kichikuou was a really innovative game for its time, but it feels somewhat shallow in retrospect. The characters did not have different classes or unique traits in the same way Sengoku Rance does. The only other game which comes close to approximating Sengoku Rance's quality is Alicesoft's Big Bang Age. BBA is another game I played to death and which I would rate highly. Still, the gameplay is overall more shallow than Sengoku's. Furthermore, there are only two routes in the game which curtails replay value. Recently, Rance games have started being localized officially in English. While I enjoyed Rance VI, sometimes lauded as a "best" in the series, I do not think it comes anywhere close to the same level of quality as Sengoku Rance.

Sengoku Rance has remained my favorite video game since I first played it many years ago. I went so far as to import the game for over $100.00, which I think is well worth the 100s of hours I spent playing it. I'm not sure my preference for Sengoku Rance is ever going to change. I did almost everything there was to do in that game, and believe me, there are tons of different ways to play it.

Shout out to Valvatorez. I played Disgaea 4 only last year and greatly enjoyed it. It was the first Disgaea game I have played.

Laughed massively when I heard this, because I never thought I would see it mentioned on here. But yes, Sengoku Rance is a fantastic game, with a surprisingly deep strategy game beneath the extremely lewd and perverted Rance and his antics. Everything you said about the game is correct - it's incredibly fun, with tons of paths and options available to you.

While Jordan is right in that most of the characters are likable and interesting, the star of the show takes the cake for me personally. Rance, being a westerner, ends up in Japan for a specific purpose, which he reveals in a very early talking heads scene - "I heard Kouhime of Owari is beautiful. So I came to [have sex with] her." Rance himself is blunt, crass, practically reckless, and his crazy personality provides plenty of comedic moments. Him and his "Hyper Weapon" do indeed pierce the heavens.

This, along with a few other games I've come across are definitely firmly in the "come for the H scenes, stay for the gameplay" types. Any amount of time I spend on Sengoku Rance is because of the extremely high quality product underneath the H-game exterior.